This
year marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Communist Party of
Canada. From its founding convention held in a barn in Guelph, Ontario
in 1921 until today, we have striven to remain true to our guiding
principles and theory, and to realize them in our daily activities and
struggles as a revolutionary party of the working class of Canada,
based firmly on MarxismLeninism and proletarian internationalism.
As
we celebrate this anniversary, we remember the many contributions and
achievements of our Party over those ninety years. Whether it was in
organizing the unorganized, forging most of the industrial and public
sector unions which exist today in our country; building and leading the
farmers' movements for survival and dignity; organizing the ranks of
Canada's unemployed during the Great Depression, launching the famous
OntoOttawa Trek; mobilizing thousands of young volunteers to fight
against fascism in Spain and later across Europe during WWII; building
the peace & disarmament movement in the postwar years; leading the
historic struggle within the labor movement in Englishspeaking Canada to
recognize the national rights of Quebec; helping to forge the
panCanadian student movement in the 1970s; helping to build broad
movements for civic reforms, universal health care, and defense of
Canadian sovereignty; all of these and many other episodes in our
history we remember with pride.
And
we remember too that our revolutionary activities were carried out in
circumstances of unrelenting hostility and attacks from Canada's ruling
capitalist class and its state. The periods when our Party was forced to
work under conditions of illegality; when Tim Buck and other Party
leaders and members were convicted and imprisoned; the McCarthystyle
witch hunts which targeted our members and supporters and Communistled
unions; the secret ProFunc plans of the Canadian State to round up and
incarcerate thousands of Communists and their families; the constant
ideological, propaganda and physical attacks against our Party (from
both the right and 'left') because it refused to succumb to
antiSovietism we remember all of those difficult days, and honor the
memory of those comrades who endured such outrages with courage and
resolve. We came to understand both at a theoretical level and through
those reallife experiences as a Party that the class purpose of those
political and ideological attacks was not only to weaken and diminish
our ranks, and to isolate the Communists from our living ties to the
working class; it was also done in the hope of shaking Communists from
our class bearings and pressuring the Party to abandon its revolutionary
theory.
It
is in this context that we mark another anniversary of sorts this year
it has been two decades since the innerparty struggle that almost
liquidated our Party. In the late 1980s, George Hewison assumed the
Party leadership and shortly thereafter a motley group of right
opportunists, careerists and Trotskyists gradually gained ascendency
within the Central Committee of the CPC. They were able to do so by
concealing their liquidationist agenda and by taking advantage of
confusion and disorientation within Party ranks due to developments in
the former Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) where under
Gorbachev's stewardship the clouds of counterrevolution were gathering.
In due course, the Hewison clique set about dismantling our Party piece
by piece, starting with the dissolution of the Young Communist League
and layoffs of Party cadre, and then the closure of the party's print
shop and publishing house, and progressive bookstores across the
country.
As
their liquidationist project gained momentum, this group began to
openly break with the ideological principles and political line of our
Party. They began negating the history of our Party (and that of the
international communist movement in general) as having been "sectarian",
"vanguardist" and "doctrinaire". They advanced reformist ideas about
"incremental change" in place of, and as a substitute for, the concept
of revolutionary transformation from capitalism to socialismcommunism.
They decreed that "imperialism" was an outdated concept (!), which no
longer characterized "post industrial capitalism". And they attacked
democratic centralism, the organizational principle of our Party, and
set about dismantling Party clubs and other organizational structures.
Over time, their denunciations of "Stalinism" led to attacks on Leninist
ideas, and ultimately to a refutation of the postulates of Marxism
itself. And they proposed that the Party change its name, dropping all
reference to 'communist' from our banner.
Behind
the scenes, this liquidationist faction began holding secret meetings
with social democrats and 'independent leftists' to dissolve the
Communist Party with the goal of forming a new 'united party of the
socialist left', using party assets to finance their new venture.
Following
the 1990 Convention, opposition to the increasingly obvious abandonment
of Marxist theory and practice by the Hewison leadership grew across
the country. When detailed evidence surfaced of their secret plans to
dissolve the Party and steal its assets, and as expulsions of members
began, the majority of the party membership demanded an emergency
Canadawide convention to resolve the issue. But the liquidators refused
and instead set about dissolving party clubs and provincial committees
that opposed their conspiracy. Members were told to sign loyalty oaths
to Hewison et al or else face a refusal to renew their memberships.
Ultimately
however the membership defeated their plans and saved the Communist
Party from destruction, but at a heavy political, organizational and
financial cost.
Ours
was not the only Communist Party to go through such a convulsive
experience; other parties around the world went through similar and
sometimes worse trials during those difficult years. To our south, a
liquidationist faction attempted to gain control of our sister party the
Communist Party USA, but were successfully beaten back.
The
lessons drawn from that painful episode in our history are important
for the Communists in Canada veterans and new members alike. But they
are lessons which can also be useful to Communists internationally, in
our common struggle for social emancipation, for an end to class
exploitation and oppression for socialism.
It
is in this context that we now comment on recent developments and
debates which have been taking place in our neighboring party, the
CPUSA. For several years now, our Central Committee has received
inquiries from many concerned members about political and organizational
changes in that party, and the renunciation by leading cadres of such
fundamental Marxist concepts as "the dictatorship of the proletariat",
"democratic centralism" and "proletarian internationalism."
The
concerns raised have dealt with a number of interrelated issues, such
as various statements issued by the CPUSA dealing with international
questions, especially on the Palestinian struggle, and on the U.S. wars
of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan; on trade union policy which many
feel is insufficiently critical of class collaborationism in the
leadership of the AFLCIO (which has a direct bearing on Canada given the
large presence of AFLCIO affiliates in the Canadian Labor Congress); on
the assessment of the role and class position of the Obama
Administration and the Democratic Party and the absence of any
independent electoral presence of the CPUSA in its own name; on various
pronouncements by leading figures of the CPUSA on changing the party
name, in describing the multitrillion dollar government bailouts as "a
dose of socialism", etc.; and in organizational decisions to cease the
print editions of People's Weekly World and Political Affairs, the
layoffs of Party and YCL organizing staff, the internetbased 'open door'
approach to party recruitment, etc.
Although
deeply concerned about many of these developments, our Central
Committee has until now refrained from comment. However, in light of the
publication earlier this year of the article "A Party of Socialism in
the 21st Century" by CPUSA Chair Sam Webb, our Central Committee finds
it necessary to clarify our Party's views on certain critical questions
which have been raised. Although the various theses presented in this
article refer, in the first place, to a proposed reorientation of the
CPUSA itself, its title and text read as if these ideas should form the
'template' of the political approach of Communist parties in general, or
certainly at least in other advanced capitalist countries such as
Canada. This assumption was confirmed when comments from other fraternal
parties were actively solicited by the CPUSA, a highly unusual
practice.
We
are aware of the formal responses given to this article by the
Communist Parties of Greece (KKE) and Mexico. Our Party is in
substantive agreement with the main criticisms of this document
expressed by these two parties. We consider that the political line
advanced in "A Party of Socialism in the 21st Century" constitutes a
fundamental departure from MarxistLeninist theory and practice. The
pursuit of such an approach will objectively lead to the liquidation of
the CPUSA as a revolutionary party of the working class in that country.
Based
on our 90 years of struggle, on our Party program "The Road to
Socialism", our Constitution, and on the decisions reached our
conventions, the Communist Party of Canada understands its nature and
role, and undertakes its political activities, as guided by the
following general considerations and conclusions (among others):
*
that the main contradiction underlying capitalism in Canada today
remains the class contradiction, reflecting in the class struggle
between the two main classes the ruling capitalist class (especially
its core, monopoly capital) and the working class of our country, a
contradiction which can only be resolved through the revolutionary
transformation of our society from capitalism to socialism.
*
therefore that as a revolutionary party, the main task of the CPC is to
defend and advance the longterm interests of the working class in
pursuit of this ultimate objective, and "strives to be the leading
political party of the working class, of all who labor by hand and
brain... [a party which] arises out of the working class and is an
organized political detachment of that class... [and which] has no
interests separate and apart from those of the working class as a
whole."
*
that our Party supports the struggle for immediate reforms to improve
the conditions of the working class and the people under capitalism, and
seeks unity with all other forces which support and will fight for such
advances; at the same time, our Party never loses sight of the ultimate
goal of socialism nor the fact that there can be no other course to
socialism other than through the revolutionary overthrow of the existing
order. In this regard, we consider a correct understanding of the
dialectical relationship between reform and revolution to be of
paramount importance;
*
that in pursuing the broadest possible unity with other class and
social forces to achieve immediate advances, it is absolutely imperative
for our Party to studiously safeguard its independent role as a
revolutionary party of the working class and oppose tendencies or
pressures either from within or without our ranks to efface or
submerge our independent role. The CPC considers it vital that it speak
directly, visibly and openly in our own name, and engage in ideological
struggle the 'battle of ideas' against bourgeois, reformist and class
collaborationist concepts that weaken, disarm and divide the movement;
*
that the "world outlook of [our] Party is based on Marxism-Leninism,
which embodies the theory of scientific socialism first developed by
Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V.I. Lenin. Marxism-Leninism is not a
dogma; it is a living, developing theory, tool of analysis and guide to
action. It incorporates the concentrated experience of all the struggles
of the working class, both in Canada and around the world" [from
Chapter 8 of our Party Program "Canada's Future is Socialism"];
*
that the CPC is imbued with a proletarian internationalist outlook,
reflected in both our struggle to achieve socialism in Canada, and in
our active solidarity with antiimperialist and revolutionary struggles,
and efforts to build socialism around the world. A critical aspect of
our internationalist responsibility is the ideological struggle against
bourgeois slanders and distortions of the history of the international
working class movement and its efforts to forge socialism, both in the
past and in the present day; and
*
that in terms of our organizational principles as a Communist Party,
these "are determined by its political aims... to guide the working
class to the achievement of these aims, and to lead the people's
struggle, the Party must be founded on firm ideological, political and
organizational unity, and on the continuous organized activity of its
members in close contact with the working people, knowing their views
and needs, and able to explain Party policy. Democratic centralism is
the organizational principle which ensures this." [from our Party
Constitution]
This is where we stand, and these are the principles which we unwaveringly defend.
-End-
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